From One Ignorance to the Next
Is humanity a herd of animals, doomed to follow its rulers to slaughter?
There is a tendency to view history as if it were a personified being, as if it has a mind of its own and is trying to accomplish predetermined goals for humanity. One version of this view is that history moves toward liberating man from oppressive regimes. Marx claimed that history moved determinately through stages according to prevailing modes of production, roughly going from slavery, to feudalism, to capitalism, to communism, and ultimately to socialism. Modern neoliberals or neoconservatives might say that history is a process of “the people” being given more of a voice in their government—a view that conveniently means the current system that provides the elite with power and job security is the ultimate end of history.
Personally, I view history as ultimately a product of Providence. However, God works in mysterious ways, and allows us to be the agents of change within whatever His ultimate plan for history is. Thus the question for what causes change from one period of history to the next is not as simple as saying it is whatever God wills. Even embracing Providence, we can still ask whether any patterns emerge in how human beings ambulate from one period of history to the next.
Thus, it occurs to me that a case can be made for viewing the progression between historical periods as the product of a series of “veils of ignorance” being removed from people’s minds, only to be replaced with new ones under which they can still be ruled but under new systems of government.
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